


Blackbird

by juliadream (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 17:56:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15345336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/juliadream
Summary: “He is going to be a great man, if it is any consolation,” the man says, gingerly placing the baby in Mary’s arms.“He’s going to face monsters,” Mary says.“He is going to face angels, too.”





	Blackbird

**Author's Note:**

> hey! this is old. it may or may not be unfinished. i can't remember. have fun!!

Somewhere in the darkened house, the chiming of a clock reverberates off the walls, reaching the ears of a women trapped in deep slumber. Or at least, she’d like to be.

She rolls over, her eyes floating up to the ceiling. She feels like scratching her skin off and bleeding all over the carpet, staining it a bright red.

But she never would. She has a husband to think of, and a baby in the next room.

At the thought of her four-month-old infant, her stomach clenches.

“John,” she hisses, poking the man sleeping next to her in the ribcage. She tries to be gentle.  

He lets out a snore, shuddering awake.

“What is it, Mary?”

Her blonde hair falls over the pillow in golden rivers.

“I’m worried about the baby.”

John lets out a sigh. This has become a nightly ritual for the two of them.

“He’s fine, honey. Go back to sleep.”

He rolls over, ending the conversation.

John tries to be a good husband, he really does. He works weekdays at the mechanic to pay for diapers, but he takes weekends off. He visits family in Kentucky, always bringing along his pretty little wife. He cooks a roast every Sunday and buys her flowers every month. He’s never forgotten an anniversary or birthday, and he reads her H. G. Wells novels when she can’t sleep.

Or at least, he used to.

He held her when she miscarried, stroking her hair and taking a month off work to vacation in California before returning to his real life.

Mary is not satisfied. She rolls out of bed, pulling her bathrobe tight around her sheer nightgown and stepping into her slippers.

She pads down the hallway, past the framed photos of John and her son, the only family she really has left, and opens the door with the blue race car painted on it just a crack.

There is a light emanating from a Snoopy-shaped figurine in the corner, plugged into a circuit.

She does not hear the soft cooing of the baby. She pushes the door father open, rushing over. There is something missing.

The cradle is empty.

Her heart screeches to a halt.

She feels a breeze, and she looks over to the window that she knows she did not leave open in fear of the baby catching a chill.

She tries not to catch a face full of blue fabric as she glances out.

There are three men standing in her backyard, looking out of place amongst the brightly colored gnomes and caged in garden.

Two of them are wearing matching suits. One of them is holding her baby.

The third man has his back turned to Mary, and all she can see is that he is wearing a trench coat.  She bites back a scream, not wanting to alert the three men to her presence.

Before she can move, she is blinded by two bursts of light.

She hears a soft fluttering sound, like seagulls flying over a bay that she used to visit when she was a girl, and she can almost smell the sea salt.

She opens her eyes, and she finds the man in the trench coat standing before her, cradling her baby in his large arms.

“I apologize for the inconvenience,” the man says, and she cannot help but compare his voice to the sound she hears every morning when John backs his car across the loose gravel on his way to work each morning.

“They’re coming for him, aren’t they,” she breathes. She thought she had escaped this life. Her world is falling apart.

“Yes. I am sorry.”  The only thing keeping from Mary breaking into sobs is the baby still cradled in the man’s arms.

“I tried to save him from this life. I don’t want to grow up like I did.” Her head is swimming with memories of monsters hiding under her bed and gunfire, the stench of fresh blood and the frantic beating of her heart every time her dad announced he would be out of town for a few weeks.

“He is going to be a great man, if it is any consolation,” the man says, gingerly placing the baby in Mary’s arms. The baby is still asleep, but he lets out a gurgle when he looses contact with the man.

“He’s going to face monsters,” she says.

“He is going to face angels, too.”

She lets out a sigh.

“Why am I not surprised?” She holds the baby for a moment more before placing him in the cradle. She draws the covers up to his chin, raising a finger to rock the _Star Wars_ mobile she has hanging above his head, and presses a kiss to his forehead.

“You know him,” she says, looking at the strange man who had entered her home.

“Yes. He and I share a profound bond.” She cracks a smile.

“I will make sure he grows up knowing that I love him, not matter what.” She misses the pang of guilt lying in the man’s eyes.

“He is going to save lives. There will be stories told about him for centuries to come.” Mary is silent.

“I suppose there’s a reason you’re telling me all this,” she says. “I’m not going to live to see it, are I?”

The man cannot look the woman in the eyes. They are a deep green, undeniably familiar.

“I am sorry.”

“Well, I’m not. Growing up in this line of business, I’m surprised I’ve made it this long.” She rubs a hand along the baby’s stomach, and a trail of dribble leaks over his plump lips.

“You’ll watch over him, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“That’s all I want to hear.”

She expects the man to leave as quickly as he entered. She hears that fluttering noise again, and her eyes dart over to where the man stands. He has produced a feather, a glossy black, which looks as though it could belong to a raven.

He places it in the crib, beside the sleeping boy.

“This will keep him safe,” the man says.

Mary lays a tentative hand on the side of the cradle, and she watches as the baby seems to gravitate towards the soft object, rubbing his face against it. She cackles.

“He really seems to like you.” She turns to look at the man, to thank him for everything he’s done tonight and will do in the future, but she is met only by the walls of the darkened nursery.

“You’re going to be just fine, Dean,” she says. “You have an angel watching over you.”

Unaware that he had just been snatched out of peril and held in the arms of the most important being in his life, Dean sleeps.

 

o.O.o

 

Castiel is thrown through a vortex, tumbling head over heels. He barely has time to land on two feet, in presumably the right time period, when his is assaulted by prayer.

_Cas, come quick. It’s Kevin. Please, I –_

The prayer cuts off.

o.O.o

 

Dean closes his eyes, pressing his monstrous fist against the mahogany of the table.

When he opens them, he hastily swipes the back of his hand against his face, just above his cheekbone.

“Cas,” he says, and his face betrays his belief that he was not expecting the angel to actually come. But the truth is, he’d never doubted it for a second.

He stands upright, knocking over his chair, and Dean is suddenly filled with relief that Cas always stands just a little too close, in arms reach. It takes no effort to throw his arms around the man.

Cas smells like lightning and dust, and Dean just wants to bask in the scent and forget. But he cannot. It wouldn’t be fair to Kevin.

“Dean, he is a prophet. People would give their lives to have a single cell from his body. We have to burn him,” Castiel says as Dean clenches his fists around handfuls of fabric. He feels large arms warp around him, and he is content to never let go. He does not remember that he is Dean Winchester and that the only person he’s hugged since Ellen and Jo died is his brother.

Castiel digs the shovels out from their hiding places in the garage while Dean watches the body, reassuring himself that it’s not going anywhere. When Castiel re enters the kitchen, Dean can’t stop himself from wiping the silvery cobwebs flaking the angel’s hair.

Dean carries the shovels. Castiel would carry Dean, if he could, but he knows the hunter would not appreciate being picked up and carried like a ragdoll, drawn close to his chest, as he does to Kevin.

They dig. Choosing a particularly dry spot, each shovelful of dirt is a mountain for Dean. However, Cas works the ground as if it is made of putty.

“If this were a competition,” he deadpans, “I would be winning.” Dean spares him a tight-lipped smile.

The hole is dug, six feet deep and large enough to carry the body of a small Asian prodigy. Kevin is limp when he is placed gently into the grave. With his hands crossed over his chest, he looks like Snow White.

When confronted, Dean will blame the watering of his eyes on the smell of gasoline.

He reaches into his pocket, drawing out a lighter stamped with black, feathery wings (a gift that Sammy had picked up for fifty cents at a convenience store when Dean was taking a piss at a gas station, months ago, before he was chained to an angel) and touches it to the grass, where he has poured a trail of the flammable liquid leading into the ground. He doesn’t step back at the gust of heat. It dries his face and warms his heart.

Castiel’s mind is not with him. As usual, he is already addressing the next problem before it is even presented.

“A new prophet has been born.”

He finds it odd, being human. Well, he found it odd. When he was human, every action had a consequence – a burn of shame, a stab of rage, a pang of loneliness. But there was also a wave of relief, a flare of joy, even the cool sting of infatuation.

But now, he has nothing. He never made the conscious decision to lock his emotions away in Pandora box. Perhaps the grace he had stolen had taken so much room in his soul, it pushed everything else out.

“Dean, I know you are grieving, but we – “

Castiel feels as though an invisible entity is attempting to cut out his sternum. He lets out a howl of pain, squinting his eyes shut and collapsing to the ground.

The flames lick the sky, turning a bright orange and filling the air with the promise of a Sunday barbeque.

He feels a heat coursing through his veins, and his stomach is twisted inside out.

Finally, he grabs Dean’s attention, and the man is rushing over him, dragging him away from the heat and the flames and laying him down in the cool grass, standing over him like his own personal guardian angel. 

“It’s this grace.” Castiel answers the question Dean didn’t ask, his chest heaving with each word. He feels like he’s on a bed of needles, with each one poking into his flesh. “I stole it,” he says, because he can no longer focus long enough to remember whether or not he told Dean the entire story. “I had to. And my body is rejecting it.”

Dean’s hands are everywhere. They are pulling him inside the safe confines of the bunker. They are removing his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt. They are running across his face. And then they are gone, and Castiel feels as though every inch of his skin is covered in frost.

They are back, with something cool and damp pressed to his forehead. He feels the water dampen his hairline, turning it a jet black, and drip into his eyes, which have crunched shut.

He reaches out a hand of his own, clammy and pale, and he shakily presses it to a clothed forearm.

He wants to tell Dean that he’s visited Mary, to relay her final message. But he realizes that everything he wants to say about the woman, Dean already knows.

The pain subsides, transmuting from a burn coursing through his veins to a soft pulsation just beneath his skin. He can feel the empty space in his chest where it once laid, a hollowness in his chest cavity. And he thinks, for a moment, that things are not as bad as they seem, and that he will get better.

That is when the glass shatters.


End file.
